It's Soil Kitchen time in Austin again for urban gardeners.
The city will do a free soil analysis for you. I think they send it to TAMU,
and you get their "routine analysis", which looks at pH, NO3-N,
conductivity, P, K, Ca, Mg, Na, and S. That's ordinarily now a $12 deal, plus
more for postage. The kicker is that you also get Pb and As. I believe the
rationale here is that the city is looking for sites that might attract some
federal remediation dollars and besides, you would kinda like to know if you're
sitting on a superfund site.

One person can bring in one soil sample (so bring a friend),
and the only site identification you give them is the nearest cross
street. So if your yard is polluted, it won't be a matter of public record. A few hundred people do this every year.

The 2018 Soil Kitchen is Saturday April 14th from 9 a.m. - 2
p.m. & Sunday April 15th from 9 a.m. - noon at Parque Zaragoza. Next
weekend. That's where you bring your sample. You will get a code number for the sample, and using that code number, you can download the results next month.

http://www.austintexas.gov/soilkitchen

http://www.austintexas.gov/news/free-soil-testing-urban-gardeners